Spirits of the motherland and IT

Only five years ago one can hardly imagine that Gyumri may become a technological hub, hosting various IT companies, funded by people from Gyumri. Even ten years ago very few people were informed of programming and IT sphere in general. Karen Gasparyan is one of the locals, who learnt coding in Gyumri in that period, but because of the lack of employment opportunities had to move to Yerevan.

‘After working for a number of companies and gaining extensive experience, I thought about continuing my career in my hometown and decided to return to Gyumri. I think that one should move to another city for work only when there is no single prospective in his hometown, that was the reason why I moved to Yerevan,’ mentions Karen․

Year by year the situation changes, new companies open their branches in Gyumri, which leads to the increase of the demand for high-quality IT workforce. However, it is still pretty hard to find a good team of professionals. After many years of working in Yerevan, Karen decides to return and establish his own company which provides not only outsourcing services but also develops its own product. ‘I also teach and train new developers and this gives me an opportunity to select my own team and involve them in my projects.’

Establishment of a company requires certain investments, and the ‘Boosting technological developments in Shirak marz’ project, funded by the European Union and RA Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development, provided huge assistance. ‘I learnt about the project in the right time for me, applied for a sub-grant. The financial assistance, provided by the project helped me to reach my goals. Through the grant I managed to make my first investment, bought computers, furniture, rented the office space and hired the team.' Currently, the company has only two staff members, but has already started working on projects, outsourced from the Russian Federation. The newly established company already started collaboration with world leaders and will develop a pilot software research and development project with a Fujitsu group company in Poland. The new projects lead to quick enhancement of the team and young people trained under the project get new opportunities. Karen also teaches Java programming language and prepares junior developers, having adequate working skill and ready to join IT companies

Karen is not a unique case, many locals follow his path and return to their homeland and contribute to the technological development of Shirak.